THE RUBY SUNS
Fight Softly is the second album for Sub Pop by New Zealand’s pop masters The Ruby Suns. Ryan McPhun (their prime mover) has the kind of voracious musical mind that cites as equal influences ‘80s New Jack Swing and modern Angolan kuduro, Fleetwood Mac and Britney Spears, Brazilian tropicalia and Argentinean cumbia. He’s the kind of diligent, meticulous soul that spends days hunched over a laptop in a tiny rented studio in Auckland, NZ just to perfect a sequenced drum track (mission accomplished). And Fight Softly is the kind of head-spinning combination of big-picture vision and sumptuous detail that only comes from an artist with an urgent need to express all the stuff he’s seen. And you can dance to it!
California-born (and New Zealand citizen) McPhun took childhood trips to New Zealand and finally made Auckland home in 2003. Though he soon started playing with Kiwi indie darlings The Brunettes, he’d been making his own music for years—-four-track bedroom stuff that mixed his faraway vocals with effects-laden guitar, synths, and all manner of field-recorded samples. With his own new band, Ryan McPhun and The Ruby Suns, McPhun recorded and released his first album for NZ label Lil’ Chief Records. By the time its follow-up, Sea Lion, was ready the foreshortened Ruby Suns had gained a college following in New Zealand and toured Australia with :The Shins":http://www.subpop.com/artists/the_shins and the UK with Field Music, among others. The album came out on Sub Pop in early 2008 and landed on various best-of lists that year.
And for a few summer months The Ruby Suns landed in Seattle. There they played Sub Pop’s not-so-humble 20th anniversary festival and began work on Fight Softly….
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The Ruby Suns - Fight Softly
SP863 - Released: March 2, 2010
The prime mover of The Ruby Suns, Ryan McPhun has literally traveled around the world to arrive at Fight Softly, the band’s 2nd album for Sub Pop, and 3rd…
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Sea Lion
Ruby Suns s/t
Fight Softly
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- No tour dates scheduled at this time.
- Promo Photo - The Ruby Suns 1 (photo by Amee Robinson)
- Promo Photo - The Ruby Suns 2 (photo by Amee Robinson)
- Promo Photo - The Ruby Suns 3 (photo by Amee Robinson)
- Cover - Sea Lion
- Cover - Ruby Suns s/t
- Cover - Fight Softly
- Admat - The Ruby Suns- Fight Softly
- Admat - Sea Lion Ad Mat
- Press - Review of Sea Lion in The Independent (UK)
- Press - NME review of Sea Lion
- Press - The Word (UK) review of Sea Lion
- Press - MOJO review of Sea Lion
- Press - Q review of Sea Lion
- Press - The Independent (UK) review of Sea Lion
- Press - "Mojo Rising" feature on The Ruby Suns
- Press - Fight Softy Liner Notes
